Wanted to share a rather unfortunate event with everyone. On a great wave day here on Lake Michigan and after capturing some amazing footage in long head high plus waves my Go Pro Hero 3 sank as I handed the camera to another rider for filming. We did the hand off well outside the surf zone in water that had less than a foot of wind chop on it.

I had the Floaty BacPac attached and the Go Pro Head strap mount, which I found to a amazing tool for hand held shooting. As you can adjust the head strap around your hand giving image stability, control of the shot, along with easy of kiting.

I was shocked as I watch the camera slowly sink before the other rider could get to it. So why did it sink? Not because the case opened as my thick gloves prevented any chance of undoing the locking mechanism or the case was cracked, but because of a design flaw at Go Pro.

When I called about my camera sinking in such an odd way I was told to my surprise, that the floaty is not designed to float anything but the naked camera and case. This important information is something Go Pro does not share or give a warning to on the packaging of the floaty BacPac in anyway or one any of the accessories. In fact the floaty BacPAc used with accessories is a common feature on many of the official Go Pro videos. Regardless the obvious communication error on their part they didn't seem interested in offering much to me but another surf kit camera for $160 off list price.

I received this in a follow up email from Go Pro:"We do appologize for not clearly stating that the Floaty BacPac is not designed to hold up more than just the camera. Please be sure in the future to avoid puting any other mounts on the camera when using the Floaty BacPack"

So be careful with your Go Pro if you own one, don't expect the floaty BacPac to do its job and second don't expect a billion dollar company to communicate critical facts about their products to the end user.

northerner wrote:When I called about my camera sinking in such an odd way I was told to my surprise, that the floaty is not designed to float anything but the naked camera and case. This important information is something Go Pro does not share or give a warning to on the packaging of the floaty BacPac in anyway or one any of the accessories. In fact the floaty BacPAc used with accessories is a common feature on many of the official Go Pro videos. Regardless the obvious communication error on their part they didn't seem interested in offering much to me but another surf kit camera for $160 off list price.

Looking at the webiste, gopro have always said that it won't support the weight of the camera + suction cup mount. I doubt there's much difference in weight between that and the headstrap - it would have been sensible to test this first before you used it, find out that that there's not and then throw a hissy fit because gopro won't give you a shiny new camera.

That sucks Northerner..........I can't imagine how shitty that feels to lose a $400 camera kiting. I just made a 3rd person backpack mount out of some RAM mounts and an old bike bag. It works great, but a friend of mine asked about precautions for losing the camera. I thought about the Floaty, but now I'll disregard. I'll try to tether something instead. I really wanted a Hero 3 for this application because the remote would come in handy for the 3rd person setup......now I don't know. I keep hearing problems with GP Hero III's still fogging and the remote not working. If I lose this camera I'm throwing in the towel on filming kiting.

I would recommend you guys to get the Silver and not th eBlack Edition Camera as the Black has some battery issues and sometime doesn t turn on or off till you remove the battery and put it back in! Which is a big deal if you are in the water!

About the remote, I got my hand on one yesterday to try it with the camera on the line mount, and it works great! I ve save a lot of battery and memory by not having to film the whole time and could switch easily from pictures to video mode with one single click, awesome!

I will try it with the kite mount tomorrow during the Ocean downwinder and see if it works with more distance between the remote and the camera!

This one was taken from the kite with the Silver edition but without using the remote.....had to go thru 2500 pictures to get it! That was an Epic downwinder tho!

Toby wrote:...Why do you use the picture setting?To save battery?Otherwise just do a video and then take a screenshot.Will be about 1mb if full sized...enough for the web...

The picture setting takes really nice stills. Much better quality than a screenshot. Gives you the option to crop and such as well.Additionally, some folks have told me that if you leave the camera in picture mode (even when not recording, but powered on) it consumes less power than when in video mode. This has been the case in my tests. My theory is that the camera just keeps running the sensor in whatever mode you have it in, it just doesn't write it to flash unless you're recording.

Anyway, with the remote, YES, it is very convenient to switch between stills and video mode. And of course power it off when you are not doing anything interesting to conserve the fragile battery life of the thing.

Regarding the floaty backpack not floating the unit, I had read when I purchased my HERO3 that it won't float much other than the camera. Since most people have the battery, screen or other accessories attached that is kind of useless. They should make a bigger float.